Calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, “Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to saving yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What could you ever trade your soul for?”

Months ago now, the Lord spoke to me and told me my identity was about to be tested!

When the enemy makes every effort to twist you into a pretzel spiritually can you still pin point your location as a child of GOD?

Since I had been in the mist of an intense challenge from what is now a former friend during the time the Lord spoke those words to me I had believed that the “testing” would be around that issue and that by late to mid March all would be coming to an end.

The time frame turned out to be much longer and this testing would take on tones and avenues that I had never been exposed to before.

New levels… new devils!

As I am recovering from this trail I feel in many ways I’ve being asked to “start over” as yet a newer creation in Christ Jesus and more dependent on HIM than I was even before this testing and trial began. Then my perception was that I would do was pick-up from where I left off!

This fantasy was also dashed:-0

My husband’s surgery story illustrates how I have felt during my recovery process very well.

First of all anesthesia taken for surgical operations can leave a person with a distorted perception of time. Patients report missing whole blocks of time and or confusing days!

Have you ever felt as if you were inside slow motion or being fast forwarded?

Well, I can’t explain it but I had some of those kind of experiences during my identity testing and recovery period.

And honestly, I am totally drug free! Some would even consider me a bit exacting regarding my health and what goes into my body. I mean the temple of The Holy Spirit.

Now on to my husband’s nasal/throat surgery story!

More than 9 years ago my husband had surgery on his nasal cavity and throat. This surgery was done because he was narcoleptic.

Narcolepsy is one of the most serious sleep disorders that affects people This particular condition can cause disruptions in a person’s life, and may even be dangerous in some situations. Although there is no cure for narcolepsy, it can be treated to help manage the symptoms that accompany this disorder.

The procedure was done to prolong his life and the surgery was very successful and we remain deeply thankful to the Lord for its success!

However, this surgical process left all of my husbands taste buds misfiring.

When he ate cake or other sweets it did not taste like anything except cardboard ( he reported) and on top of this it was very painful for him to even swallow even with pain medication!

My husband had to eat based on his bodily need and choose foods based on his memory of them and their taste!

No pleasure in his eating process would come for many, many months.

There are times in our christian walk when we might go through a trial that leaves us back at Christianity 101 with much of the former sweetness having disappeared and our spiritual taste buds not being able to perceive and discern sweetness and instead everything tasting bland or signals misfiring!

Depending on the type of trauma and persecution we’ve experienced it will point to what we need to fully recover so that we can dance and sing HIS praises once again with our full and whole heart.

Even in stopping to reflect on pain, mistreatment or our fears parts of our hearts are processing other matters and not able to be fully engaged to the max in our praise of him.

I think this is part of the reason why the enemy comes after believers with such a vengeance because if he can inflict enough pain then many times we are not able to fully walk in joy and praise GOD with wild abandon!

In those times spiritually when sweet taste like salty and hot taste sour, remember Jesus Christ knows how to read and process the deepest recesses of our hearts and a weak sounding praise in affliction may sound louder in heaven than all the running and shouting up and down the isles at church.

Praise and worship are about the shouts from the deepest recess of our souls and many are only heard in heavenly sound-waves!

Genesis 32:24-30

The Message Bible

24-25 But Jacob stayed behind by himself, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he couldn’t get the best of Jacob as they wrestled, he deliberately threw Jacob’s hip out of joint.

26 The man said, “Let me go; it’s daybreak.”

Jacob said, “I’m not letting you go ’til you bless me.”

27 The man said, “What’s your name?”

He answered, “Jacob.”

28 The man said, “But no longer. Your name is no longer Jacob. From now on it’s Israel (God-Wrestler); you’ve wrestled with God and you’ve come through.”

29 Jacob asked, “And what’s your name?”

The man said, “Why do you want to know my name?” And then, right then and there, he blessed him.

30 Jacob named the place Peniel (God’s Face) because, he said, “I saw God face-to-face and lived to tell the story!”